The first phase of NASA's Artemis mission, Artemis I, formerly Exploration Mission-1, has been moving forward in the last few months. The primary goal of Artemis is to return humans to the Moon, specifically the lunar south pole, by 2025. If successful, it will include the first crewed lunar landing mission since Apollo 17 in 1972.
Apollo 17 was the final lunar flight of the Apollo program. Artemis I will be the first integrated flight test of NASA's Deep Space Exploration Systems: the Orion spacecraft, Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, with the newly upgraded Exploration Ground Systems at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Read | NASA assembles massive rocket to fly around Moon before manned missions resume
What is expected in the first phase
In this phase, the new powerful rocket and spacecraft Orion named SLS will be tested for the first time and things will be sent to the moon.
Two new instruments have also been added to this list which will be sent to the moon for testing.
One of these instruments will study the mysterious Gruithuisen Domes of the moon. This will be the first time such a study will be conducted.
Along with this, the second campaign will be related to biological research on the surface of the moon.
According to NASA, both instruments will be landed on the Moon via the Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS).
It was designed as part of the larger Lunar Exploration Infrastructure planned for this decade. But both the devices have recently been linked by Artemis 1.
What the Artemis mission will study?
Dr Joel Kearns, Deputy Associate Administrator for Exploration at NASA's Science Mission Directorate, said in a statement that the first mission will study the geologic processes of the earliest planetary bodies preserved on the Moon. This study will investigate rare types of volcanic processes on the Moon.
According to Dr Kearns, in the second study, the effects of low gravity and radiation environment of the Moon on yeast will be studied. This model is used to understand the damage and repair of DNA on living beings on Earth. This will also be the first experiment of its kind because the effects of the Moon's atmosphere on living beings have not been studied so far.
The reason NASA has chosen this type of yeast is that it is an important paradigm for human biology. The data from this study will allow scientists to answer decades-old questions about how partial gravity and deep space radiation combined affect biological processes.
